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The following was first published in funny little world.
Kirsten Han /
When I first saw this article, 'Swee Say to firms: Emulate Gaga', I thought my eyes were going to fall out of my head. But after reading the article I had to confess that I did see his point. No matter what you might say about Lady Gaga, one cannot deny that she is a super-savvy when it comes to putting herself out there. The colossal success of Lady Gaga is as much down to her smarts in marketing as her natural talent (if not more). In that context I can see how asking companies to learn from Gaga makes sense.
And this is how a historical moment was born: I agreed with Lim Swee Say.
In fact, I agree with Lim Swee Say so much that I think he should go even further with the Gaga emulation. Why stop at just companies? I propose that our Ministers lead by example and have our government emulate Gaga as well, just to show Singaporeans how it's done.
I've even helpfully come up with three ways in which they could emulate Lady Gaga, just to get the ball rolling...
#1 : Support LGBT
Lady Gaga is well known for her LGBT advocacy work. Herself bisexual, she has become a gay icon the world over, and her song Born This Way is now a celebrated gay anthem (just think of how many times it played during Pink Dot 2011!)
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If the government would emulate Gaga, we would finally see the back of Section 377A which discriminates against all gay men, and finally step into the future of living in a society that supports and respects everyone's right to love whoever they love.
#2 : Allow for freedom
The thing that makes Lady Gaga so unique and attention-grabbing is because this woman doesn't give a flying !$%# about boundaries. Hello, we're talking about someone who wore a meat dress and emerged from an egg (not at the same time, but who knows what she'll do in the future).
Without fear of boundaries, she just creates, allowing her artistic side to flourish. Not everyone will appreciate her work or agree with her, but the point of Art was never to get everyone in agreement, anyway. Art is not exciting if the response is unanimous, and that's just how it is.
If the government would emulate Gaga, we would bid goodbye to censorship and restrictions and those dastardly mysterious "OB markers", leaving the creative circles in Singapore to express themselves however they want without fear of having their funding cut for "promoting alternative lifestyles" or anything like that.
Just for good measure, here is a video that I am sure Lim Swee Say hasn't seen. If this were made in Singapore, MDA would be all over it with a pair of scissors and the final product would probably be about 3 seconds frames long.
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#3 : Don't sue people's pants off!
We took Lady Gaga's song and did this to it:
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We didn't even have the legal rights to do that. And she actually didn't sue us.
I think you get the picture.